Greater Harrisburg's Community Magazine

Up with People: I’m down for the count with Harrisburg’s draft comprehensive plan.

Illustration by Rich Hauck.

For a city nerd like myself, Harrisburg’s draft comprehensive plan is like Christmas morning meets a zoning board hearing.

And it’s not just the meat-and-potatoes of the plan—the various goals and guidelines and hopes and dreams—things that, honestly, may or may not happen over the next two decades or so.

When I open up the 246-page document—boom—a whole bunch of other fascinating stuff pops out, like I’ve just unwrapped a holiday gift from Harrisburg to me.

There are cool charts and graphs and beautiful skyline photos and tons of historical data. Does it get any better than this?

Seriously, I recommend that all Harrisburg residents try to spend some time with the draft plan, as they’ll inevitably learn something, perhaps many things, they don’t know about their city.

One data set that I keep circling back to is on page 01-7, Table 1-1: “Population Projections.” To my surprise, the chart shows no population growth in the city out to 2040. In fact, it shows a contraction—from just below 50,000 people today to 46,266 in two decades.

I keep thinking, “How can that be?”

The city cites the commonwealth’s “Population Projections Report, 2010-2040” for the figures but doesn’t offer the methodology. However, one thing’s for certain—they didn’t ask me.

I’m optimistic about Harrisburg’s future on some fronts, less so on others.

For instance, I don’t expect a lot of growth in terms of office workers. The city’s market for office space has been weak for some time, and the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t helping the situation. The virus likely will only accelerate the existing trend towards telecommuting among Harrisburg’s small army of white-collar workers.

I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but that’s what I see right now.

Residential, however, is a different story.

According to realtors I know, demand is very strong for residential real estate in Harrisburg. At one point last month, there was not single home for sale in Shipoke—the first time I’d ever seen that—and the same in Riverside. Most decent houses in nice neighborhoods were selling in just days, sometimes hours, after hitting the market.

But my optimism isn’t solely based on the current situation, with low interest rates spurring demand in many places. I feel that Harrisburg is well positioned to experience population growth over the next 20 years.

First, Harrisburg is a far more attractive city than when I decamped here a dozen years ago. The desolation I felt on my first long walk through Midtown has been replaced by bustle—new restaurants and venues, restored buildings, a vibrant Broad Street market and plenty of sidewalk traffic. Street improvements have made the city more pedestrian and bike-friendly, and more are coming.

Secondly, not only is the sales market strong, so is the rental market. According to a story in this month’s issue, the pandemic has led urban-dwellers to move to smaller cities, and Harrisburg seems to be benefitting. So, low interest rates aren’t the only thing juicing demand lately.

Thirdly, Harrisburg is a city that once had nearly 90,000 residents, most living in rowhouses and small apartment buildings. Today, the population is about half that. What does that mean? Empty land—and plenty of it.

You can find copious amounts of vacant land—places where buildings once stood—in almost every neighborhood in Harrisburg. From surface parking lots downtown to grassy fields Uptown, the city has a crazy amount of buildable property.

With just a few exceptions, no new, market-rate housing has been built in Harrisburg for decades. However, that’s beginning to change as rising residential demand and price appreciation have made the city’s vast empty fields more attractive, at long last, than just a place to watch the squirrels romp.

In fact, several developers recently began tussling over land on both sides of the coveted Reily Street corridor. Several major residential projects are planned for the area near the new federal courthouse, a mixture of apartments and single-family townhomes, with some commercial and office thrown in.

In 20 years, Harrisburg will be in the midst of drafting its next comprehensive plan. When that time comes, the city’s planning director will jetpack his way to work, sit down at his levitating desk and discover, on page 01-7 of the dusty old 2020 plan, a chart that projects that Harrisburg will have just 46,266 people in 2040.

He’ll probably chuckle and mumble to himself, “What the heck were they thinking?”

Lawrance Binda is co-publisher/editor-in-chief of TheBurg.

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